If you read my last book you know some of it takes place up in trees. That's where I'd go to be alone to read, listen to music with earbuds in my ears, think about The Big Questions in Life, and make love to Nokosee. The trees were always changing because we were constantly breaking camp in the middle of the night while on the run from Uncle Sam and his badass Army Rangers. But most of the time if I was lucky and the hammock was big and high enough over the water to support its growth, my go-to-tree was a gumbo limbo, a way cool tree if there ever was one. Now that I'm holed up in the Miccosukee Embassy seeking Sanctuary from the Feds, I make it a point to take time to meditate. It frees me from the four walls of the Embassy and puts me back in the top of my tree where the branches are swaying gently by a summer breeze. My mantra, as it was then, is Peyote Healing by Robbie Robertson of The Band, Bob Dylan's famous back-up band. Robertson's mother was a full-blooded Mohawk and he was raised on the Six Nations Reserve southwest of Toronto, Ontario which gives him rez cred for his later solo albums championing Native American life and music. Here are the lyrics for Peyote Healing which Robertson credits to the Lakota Sioux as a spirit medicine healing song:

Wani wachiyelo. Ate omakiyayo.
(Father help me. I want to live!)
Wani wachiyelo. Ate omakiyayo.
(Father help me. I want to live!)
Wani wachiyelo. Ate omakiyayo.
(Father help me. I want to live!)
Atay nimichikun?
(Father, have you done this?"
Oshiya chichiyelo.
(Humbly have pity on me.)

9/26 Update: It appears September is the month for books on trees. The Hidden Life of Trees was released this month. Its author Peter Wohlleben was a one-time tree killer, aka a forester, until one day when he saw the light: trees have feelings. I felt this more than once while up in my trees but it's good to see its been validated by an "expert in the field." So, no, you're not crazy if you hug a tree. They appreciate it. To read a short review on the book please click here. 

I remember always trying to find just the right set of branches to sit in so I could assume the lotus position, turning on the music, closing my eyes and trying not to fall out of the trees. When I got it right, I was transported out of that harsh and unforgiving world to a better place, a place by the end of the song had put a smile on my face and given me a lighter heart.

And then there was the time I heard laughter at the bottom of my tree. It was my father-in-law, the late and great founder and chief of the New Seminole, Busimanolotome Osceola. He was laughing real hard. If you read my books, you know him and I didn't see eye-to-eye on just about everything. Until I helped him shoot down a drone over the Everglades with a Stinger missile from a small Micco airplane, he never really accepted me as a member of the tribe. And let me tell you, he did everything he could to break me. But when I didn't break and saw I would stand my ground in a fight, he loved me like I was his own daughter. So now when I meditate in the Embassy, I see three faces up in my "tree:" Nokosee, Hallie, and my Micco. 

Try it. See if you don't come down from your "tree" with a big fat silly smile on your face.*

*Of course, it doesn't hurt to have your "doors of perception" opened by the drug Robertson is singing about. Peyote has been the go-to-drug for most of the 500 Nations and it's been doing its job long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That said, Nokosee wouldn't allow me to touch the stuff before getting into the smoke hut/furnace so I did it drug free. When I emerged, my body had been cleansed (sweating bullets with lots of throwing up into the bonfire with the hope of putting it out), but I was still visionless (clueless, too, but that's another story). In retrospect, I wish my doors of perception had been opened through peyote and that I had had a vision because without the vision came Busi's demand that I do the "vision quest" alone in a mosquito infested swamp full of alligators and water moccasins. To this day, I believe it was just another attempt by Busi trying to break me.

BTW, Busi's favorite book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe is, for the most part, about author Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") who was one of the first users of LSD in the U.S. Wolfe tells us the idea of writing the book came to Kesey while working the night shift at the Menlo Park Vets hospital where psychedelic drugs were used to treat the patients (and to keep them in line). While on peyote, Kesey starts getting "eyelid movies... of faces he's never seen before." Including "Chief Broom." At that time Kesey didn't know any Native Americans BUT Chief Broom came to him in his vision to solve the problem of telling the story: He wouldn't tell it through Randle McMurphy's eyes (the main character) but rather through those of the Indian... "This way he could present a schizophrenic state the way the schizophrenic himself, Chief Broom, feels it and at the same time report the McMurphy Method more subtly." 

9/24 Update: Just finished a new book up in my tree. On Heights & Hunger by Josh Maclvor-Andersen. I highly recommend it to anyone like me wrestling with the big questions in or out of a tree. The author is at once an arborist, a competitive tree climber (who knew), and a professor of writing, journalism, literature, and mythology at Northern Michigan University. I was initially drawn to it because it was written by a guy who knows trees, like me, and likes them too, like me.  Then I was drawn to his prose and the power he wields over words as he tells his story about growing up in a Christian commune called Love Inn (gotta love that), falling away from it following his parents' divorce and then joining up with his older brother to scale trees, skydive, and lead lives of adventure.  All the while trying to make sense out of life, faith, and family. Very much like my story but with far less bloodletting. And sex. But with more of a self-deprecating sense of humor.

Nokosee sent me this picture of a tat he says he wants to put on his back. I texted him back and asked if he was insane-- and jokingly added the only one who gets tats in this family is me! Really, the last thing I want to see when I roll over next to Nokosee in bed is a picture of a beheaded Donald Trump staring back at me with eyes rolled back in his head.  That's not to say I don't appreciate the talent by the tat doc who did it. It is truly amazing; it's just not for the back of my husband or the father of my baby. 

Anyway, if any of you have read my books, you know "we doan need no mo' stinkin' tattoos" to prove how macho we are. We've been through hell and back. In fact, in order to stop bringing attention to me, I've let my hair grow over my skull tats. Looking back, I can't believe I ever had feathered spears tattooed to each side of my head. I know what I was thinking: I wanted Nokosee to know I loved him and that I was in it for the whole shebang, i.e., I was gonna buy into his dad's crazy idea of starting an eco-war with the "Outside" hook line and sinker. Of course my hormones were raging because I was pregnant with Hallie and just maybe I wasn't thinking straight but what is done is done. 

Since holing up here at the Miccosukee Embassy in an effort to seek diplomatic "sanctuary" from Uncle Sam, I discovered there is a shitload of Native American Facebook websites out there. Nokosee and I have been sending each other links to them. That's where he got the picture of the Dead Donald tat, from Realest Natives.  Others we like are The Native American's Circle and Native Outlawz.  Many of them talk about "being mad as hell and not going to take it anymore." Like us, the New Seminole. All of them use stunning original graphic images to express these New Seminole feelings that include music, film, and poetry. To Nokosee, it's a Renaissance of Hope and Activism on a scale he wasn't aware of growing up in the Everglades from young tribes men and women our age. We both agree his father would have been happy to see this and would have been recruiting them over the Net to join up with us in the swamp. Of course, wearing a tat and making a poster is one thing, but having the cajones is quite another. Usually guts go only as far as the pain of a tattoo needle. Unless you're me.

I also learned that there is little room for me in this new aware world of NAs on a much grander scale than I suspected. I had a clue way back in book one when Nokosee and I made our grand entrance into the rez as "a couple." The Seminole chicks shunned and insulted me because I'm white but I didn't give a fuck and still don't. Now I've learned it's not just the Seminoles and Miccosukees. Apparently I'm persona non grata with most of the tribes. The current PC culture leaves little room for anyone marrying outside of the tribe, even if she shaves her head to wear a Mohawk and tattoos each side of her bare scalp with spears and feathers. And God forbid I should ever wear a war bonnet. Well, fuck you, I earned my war bonnet and I'll wear it if I want to. 

I'm not proud of the picture above. Don't get me wrong, I think I look great for being nearly 9 months preggers. It's the big fucking gun-- the knife is cool, Nokosee gave it to me as part our wedding in the swamp. It's a Special Forces knife. Use to belong to his dad when he was fighting for Uncle Sam. It's the same one I thought Nokosee was going to kill me with when we first met. Now I wear it with pride and love and because it's always by my side, it reminds me of Nokosee and his dad, my Micco, who passed the knife down to his son and from Nokosee to me. It reminds me how my Micco was killed at the battle of Rendezvous Point on that black moonless night in the Everglades and how moments later I gave birth to his grandchild Hallie. Back then toting around the big bad assault rifle made me feel safe while we were playing hide-and-seek in the swamp from Army Rangers who had a jones for killing us good.  I'm also sorry to admit that I thought it was cool. Not anymore. Not after the birth of Hallie. I've had enough of trying to save Gaia if it means killing somebody, even if it means in self-defense.

Unless, of course, someone is messing with my kid. Then I channel my Primal Mama and will spare no one. 

Nokosee use to joke that the definition of a vegetarian is a "bad hunter." I laughed the first time, smiled the second time, and now just shake my head sadly when I hear him joke about my new eating habits. I've come a long way since he started teaching me how to hunt in the Everglades. Even back then, it wasn't for survival. The food we ate to keep alive during our constant running from the enemy were MREs, "Meals Ready to Eat" that the NS stole from Uncle Sam and camping stores. We never went hungry. Looking back, I hunted for him, for him to love me more. Not any more. He's going to have to love me for whom I am. And he does. Thankfully. 

Here's a video I found on the Net. It will make you think twice about hunting.

That's me on my wedding day. I was pregnant and just turned 18. Got flowers in my Mohawk, tats on each side of my head, and a few piercings here and there. I was something else for sure and I knew I was in love-- and loved for sure. Nokosee has spoiled me. I want to be loved like that every day. But I can't because Nokosee is a "Renegade on the Run" from Uncle Sam. However, thanks to the Miccosukee Embassy's WiFi, we can still talk, even look at each other via Skype. To make up for his absence, he sends me something every day to remind me how much he loves me. Today he sent me a link about the muy powerful and legendary love affair between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Aside from the part when they first met-- she was 12 and he was 32 up on a scaffold painting a mural (Nokosee and I were 17 but he was on top of me with his daddy's Special Forces knife ready-- or so I thought at the time-- to kill me)-- we share a love that cannot be denied by God or Man. I want to believe there is "something singularly mesmerizing about the fateful encounter that sparked our epic... lifelong love affair." I want to believe I can be as fearless as Frida and deserving of Nokosee's love. He tells me not to worry, that I got both of those desires covered.

Thanks for making my day, Nokosee. Again and again and again.

​ You can read what he sent me here.

It's not a pretty picture and from what I hear, it comes with a built-in stink that you can't wash off. I saw one picture of somebody running a hose from her dock into the stinking, algae coated water to make it spread apart so a manatee could stick its head out of the water to breathe (you can watch the video of that in the link marked with the * below).  This is happening because industrial chemicals and fertilizers used by the sugar cane industry are leaking into Lake Okeechobee and from there into rivers, streams, and canals to the sea. I blame our businesscentric Repugnicant Governor Rick "Skeletor" Scott  and his party cronies for allowing this to happen. According to the Gainesville Sun "The sugar industry, led by United States Sugar and Florida Crystals, steered $57.8 million in direct and in-kind contributions to state and local political campaigns between 1994 and 2016... Environmental groups argue the political contributions resulted in the state softening regulations for sugar cane growers and other agricultural operations and undermining voter-approved Everglades cleanup initiatives." $33.3 million in political contributions went to U.S. Sugar from Michigan-based Charles Stewart Mott, heir to Mott's Applesauce. You can read more here.

You can read more of the story from The Guardian here.

You can read a quick summation of how the failure of Governor Skeletor and his legislative cronies to act in advance allowed this environmental disaster to happen here. 

Of course, your sweet tooth drives this industry so, if you're a big soda fan, you're partly responsible. Cutting back could do your body good. And Gaia's too. ​ Check out this info graph and see if having your soda and drinking it too is worth it.

Don't know if it can do any good-- aside from giving corporate management a good laugh-- but you could sign this petition against "Big Sugar." At least it's a whole lot safer than what the New Seminole tried to do. I suspect, however, that the results will be just the same-- nothing will happen (but at least no one will die). Regarding the petition, a surf shop manager hard hit by the crisis who has had enough put it together. He's demanding that Publix (Florida's largest grocery chain) stop carrying products from U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystals. So far in one week, he's had more than 10.000 people sign the petition. You can read more here.* 

BTW, if you read my last book you know we got blamed for blowing up the Lake Okeechobee dike which allowed millions of gallons of water to crash down upon a sleeping populace of Outsiders but what's happening now is far worse. Water, like  Noah's Great Flood, washes shit away to start all over again with a better, newly improved rendition of the old. Think of the Okeechobee dike explosion as a Gaia Colonic. Not pretty but maybe it had to be done-- not that we did it.  

​This algae bloom which smells like the worst farts you can imagine has inspired a song by a couple of SoFla DJs who happen to be part of the 97.9 WRMF morning show The KVJ Show . That risque, always bonkers show helps me get out of bed in the mornings while shacked up here at the Miccosukee Embassy seeking Sanctuary from Uncle Sam and his armed-to-the-teeth minions. Especially when you know the day is going to smell like rotten eggs and Gaia is wounded yet again by the Outside. I wake up laughing.